14. Saturday Night Fever

In Search of Swami series. Semi-autobiographical work about my school days. Sri Vidya Mandir, Salem.

When we think about school or hostel, we always attribute it to studies, marks and ranks. This is a common mindset, but this school, especially the hostel life was different. This is why I changed my shutter island kind of impression into a paradise island.

At though it was a conservative management, arts were always encouraged. Once in two or three weeks, Saturday night after dinner was meant for showcasing or presenting our “dramatic” and “artistic” talents.

The preparations will begin after the evening prayer as soon as the hostel staff announces that that night is going to be a “drama” night. Yes, the main attraction will be drama, mostly a mythological story which is taken from the books of Amar Chitra Katha. The costumes were makeshift- headgear using chart paper and stick, swords with cardboard, arrows made of broom sticks, senior veshtis and towels will be worn as dresses in various ways, charcoal mixed with water as moustache and beard, vibuthi or face powder will be sprinkled on the hair to get the old getup!

I was always part of seniors- Pardeep and Senthil troupe. Dialogues were not written, we will have a story, decide on what scenes we should be played, keep improvising on dialogues while rehearsing. At the maximum, we will have one hour to set a story and rehearse. 

Some students will sing film songs from the 50 paisa film lyrics book. Some will give speech about a random topic; mostly it’ll be about a national leader. The big boys of Shradha hall will always make a grand show with dance, social comedies, dual and mono acts. There will be censors too; the hostel staff in charge of the activity will be briefed on what the play is about. Usually there won’t be any cuts.

The hard part from these exercise is to take off the makeup, especially who had donned the old person getup.

----

Previous Chapter - 13. The Quiz Show                                  Next Chapter- 15. Earth Day

Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

*** Above Image by the blogger